A Hollow Man
by Junamrsgrl
Summary: Jasper has spent his whole life imagining his future with Alice...now he wants nothing more than her complete and eternal torment. Will he succeed? And at what price? Major players: Jasper, Alice, Rosalie.


**This was originally an idea I had waaaay back when during the For the Love of Jasper Contest, but when I started writing it, it turned out to be a lot longer than what they were accepting...and I was too lazy to finish it in time for submission anyway. My original intent was to post it altogether as one multi-chapter when I'd finished, but quite frankly I'm sick of it mocking me from my desktop so I've decided to give in and put up the first part now. Also, I'm hoping that reviews and the act of posting something (hey, it's been a long dry spell) will get the inspiration/ambition flowing freely again so I can finish this one up fairly soon, since it's about 2/3 of the way there.**

**Each of these segments were written with a certain song in mind- if you're interested in that kind of thing, this one belongs to Colby O'Donis/Akon: What You Got. Play it while you're reading to get the full effect.**

**Your warning: This is a lot darker than things I've previously written and will likely become even more so, as well as incredibly angsty, before the end. Incidentally, the end is up in the air right now as well...it could go either way. There's horrible language, dirty sex and some serious business character-murdering in here, so if you're looking for a fluffy canon read, you may want to try elsewhere.  
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**I've really enjoyed the writing of this and I hope that you'll enjoy the reading as well. Please let me know how you feel about if you take the time to read. ~Thanks!~**

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I sat near the back of the club in a darkened corner, as far away from the dance floor as I could possibly get, ignoring my drink and watching the spectacle in front me through hair that fallen conveniently to obscure my face. The pulsating, gritty, pop-synth music and its predictably blinding light show was doing nothing for me; in truth neither was the plethora of mostly-naked women gyrating to it.

I had my eyes trained strictly on one particular woman holding court over the dance floor with her black spiky hair, skin-tight yellow mini-dress and black stiletto boots. She was easily the hottest piece here and she knew it. It showed in every jerk of her slim hips and every caress she favored her own body with, every seductive glance that she was throwing out like candy, I thought as an acrid taste filled my mouth. I was eyeing her just as intensely as every other man in that club, maybe more, although I guarantee my thoughts were of a decidedly different bent. I'd stopped undressing her with my eyes a while ago.

Oh she was sexy, hot, smoking, whatever you wanted to call her. I'm a man, after all; I can appreciate sex in heels when it's getting low in front of me. In this particular case though, it wasn't a healthy appreciation, if that's what you could call it for any of these other saps she held mesmerized in her thrall. With every passing minute that I watched her shake her perfect ass for everyone here, man and woman alike, my mood grew blacker. My tab accumulated accordingly, but never once did I consider fucking it all and hitting the street, not even for the sake of self-preservation.

_She_ was Alice Brandon. _She_ was the girl who I'd taken one look at on the first day of school in fifth grade and been in love with ever since, knowing even then that I never had a chance. When she had finally spoken to me in our senior year of high school, I'd thought I was dreaming. If that was a dream though, I had wanted to sleep forever. When I had ignored Riley and Jake's advice and asked her out anyway, nearly making myself sick in the process, I'd expected her to laugh in my face; she was the most desirable commodity walking the school halls. She could have any guy she wanted. When she had told me 'yes' with that coquettish smile of hers, I'd started to feel light-headed as all the blood rushed from my head and I literally felt pains in my chest. Pains that had completely eclipsed the discomfort being caused by the hardness of my dick, which was where all the blood had rushed.

It's lowering to admit it now, but my entire world had been and still was shaped by this one mind-blowing event.

I lived in that bubble for exactly seventy-seven days. Seventy-seven days of utter adoration on my part. Seventy-seven days of bliss. Seventy-seven days of thoughtful gifts and ignoring my friends and lavishing every attention on her. Seventy-seven days of pandering to her every whim and trying to be the perfect boyfriend, the one she might finally decide to keep. Seventy-seven days of being happily blinded by love.

Seventy-seven days of complete ignorance. Seventy seven days of being a complete ass and cheerfully, even eagerly, ignoring the obvious. And only one day needed to show me how horribly wrong I'd been.

She wasn't that sweet fifth grader anymore and I sure as hell wasn't the same Jasper Whitlock I had been even half a year ago, I mused as I took a tasteless swig of my drink. All those whispers that I'd refused to listen to before came back to me as I watched her make eyes at the guy checking her out behind her current grinding partner's back. All of those dirty looks from other girls that I took offense to_ for_ her, I now saw in a completely different light.

I could not believe how abominably stupid I had been.

But, no longer, I thought as I knocked back another straight shot of Jack. There was a plan in place now. Not one that I was necessarily proud of, but I was certainly going to carry it out, there was no question of that. _She_ deserved a healthy dose of her own medicine, and it was going to be delivered. Signed, sealed and paid for, all courtesy of me. Jesus, who knew I had it in me to be such a vindictive bitch?

And honestly, it was utterly fucking exhausting. I may not be the same emo pussy that I had clearly been before, but it still bothered me thinking about doing what I was about to do. I had spent the entire summer perfecting my approach and honing my technique. This had to be flawless or it wouldn't work. I put all of my effort into becoming the consummate ladies' man, just as practice for this one act of revenge. I had seduced every willing girl I could find, and had even managed to persuade some of the more reticent ones into giving it up too. I used every ounce of charm I possessed to get them into bed, gave them all a good time and left, not looking back. It was ridiculously easy, and reckless, and I knew it. But it was crucial.

This wasn't my personality. It broke me a little more every morning that I woke up in some strange girl's bed, left me a little more jaded. If numbers had been exchanged in my quest to get into their pants, I stopped only to erase them from phone memories.

But when it all came down to it, they were just a means to an end. Practice for my vengeance on that cold bitch, a revenge that I had to ensure would succeed. My life had almost always existed around defined moments of Alice- in one respect that was the only thing the same about me. It was always all about her. It always had been. Once, I had lived to adore her; right now I existed to hurt her, to break her. As she had done to me.

Hence the reason I sat here in this club now, drinking alone and purposely fueling my anger and disgust. I had to remain focused and keep my eyes on the goal -obviously I'd already shown myself to be soft. Easily taken advantage of.

_Never again_, my liquor-hazed brain raged as I watched her grind against some prick on the dance floor; I was consumed with a fiery hatred as I saw him slip his hand up her thigh and the back of her almost non-existent skirt. All of the fucking years I had devoted to that whore, and I'd hardly gotten to so much as cop a fucking feel. Yet some asshole she'd never seen before was practically finger-fucking her in front of God and country. In front of me.

I was gripping my glass so hard my knuckles were white. That bitch was going down, I promised myself, and I didn't even care who got hurt in the fallout. On cue, the unfortunate object of my plan for revenge walked into view.

Rosalie Hale, Alice's cousin from New York. Blond and beautiful. Alice's best friend and confidante. I knew of her only from a distance- these two went way back in the annals of history- related since birth, best friends since well before I'd ever set eyes on Alice, certainly.

No longer though. Now was the time for me to remedy that. Now was the time to get closer, as close as humanly possible. Doing so was critical to the plan in fact. And I would have only one window of opportunity, so timing and skill were of paramount importance.

Despite her presence here in New York right now, Alice had elected to stay home in Washington and go to our local Community College. She'd given her parents some bullshit excuse about saving money and getting general electives out of the way there, but little did they know that she had no need for a college education- her real objective was to remain Queen of the Castle. She would subsist perfectly fine by sucking the life out of every man she screwed and screwed over- after getting her manicured talons on his bank account, naturally. Seattle offered ripe enough pickings and the territory was familiar; she didn't need to venture any farther for the time being.

Luckily for me, that was one bullet I'd dodged. She may have stolen my heart and shredded it, but she hadn't had enough time to divest me of my entire bank account. She'd gotten careless and been caught in the act and not even just by me. It was a horrific scenario that will forever be imprinted in my mind. For now that served me well, kept my rage channeled; no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't keep the events from slipping past my mental barriers now and again, couldn't stop re-living the worst moments of my life. Just being here in the same room with her caused them to assault me and batter away at me yet again, like the unrelenting torrential downpour that causes damage rather than cleansing away the filth. The club, the music, the people around me faded into the background as I became entrenched in my own painful past.

It had been the day of our senior prom, I remembered humorlessly. I'd arrived at her house with the limo a little early, thinking maybe we could spend a little time… alone…together before arriving at the dance. Up to that point, we'd done some making out and a little heavy petting, through clothes only; she was an expert cock-tease. When I'd begged her not to make me wait any longer, she'd given me a coy look and told me that 'good things come to boys who wait,' even as she'd sat on my lap and ground her ass into my painful erection, thrusting her tongue in and out of my mouth in a blatant mimicry of sex. I remember actually moaning, the torture was so intense. She'd taken her tongue from my mouth and whispered to me in a sultry voice, "Tonight, big boy. Tonight," as she'd squirmed on top of me some more.

She had pretty much solidified her position in my eyes as a sex goddess; I never wanted to be with another woman again, I had decided then and there. Christ, I probably would have agreed to anything just then.

The limo had stopped; we had arrived at the dance. She pulled herself off my lap tortuously slow, 'adjusting' her short skirt in such a way as to leave no mystery to the color of the thong she was wearing. My mouth watered; my cock was impossibly hard. We had exited the limo and were immediately surrounded by fellow students; one byproduct of dating Alice had been a marked surge in popularity. Overnight, all the guys wanted to be me, and all of the girls wanted to fuck me. It was a little discomfiting, to be honest; I'd always more or less spent my life in the background. But there was no such thing as Alice's accessory. And true to form, this very evening we would most likely be crowned King and Queen- a completely perplexing turn of events for me, as I had no clue how I'd even gotten suggested for such a title, much less been given the popular vote by my peers. I had attributed it to the magic of Alice, and even though it had made me slightly uncomfortable, I was happy enough to go through with it for her.

After we'd made our entrance and done the picture thing, Alice had given me a quick kiss and rushed off, claiming a need to go find her friends and 'powder her nose'. I remember chuckling at this in my bafflement; didn't she know how beautiful she was? No cosmetics could compete with her natural beauty.

I scoffed at myself now as I dredged this memory up. If I'd only known at that moment in time…no amount of makeup could ever cover the ugliness she managed to conceal so well and so effortlessly.

She had come back with her friend Bella after about 15 minutes, a girl that I recognized from my class but didn't really know. I had solicitously offered to get them a drink and asked Alice if she would like to dance, intent on being a gentleman, the man of her dreams. She agreed on both counts; a happy man, I went off in search of the refreshment table. When I'd returned, both Alice and Bella had vanished from sight.

I probably should have started getting suspicious then, but I'm not a suspicious person generally. Or at least, I wasn't. Then.

I had waited patiently for the ladies to return, occupying myself making small talk with my friend Jake and his girlfriend, who had just arrived. Jake and I hadn't had much time to hang out since I'd started dating Alice, but he seemed to just accept that as a matter of course; I imagined his own girlfriend kept him busy enough too. Minutes talking to him had turned into half an hour, until finally Angela came up to us and started trying to lure him off to the dance floor. Still, Alice hadn't returned. No sign of Bella either. I'd started to get a little worried and made up my mind to go look for her, when the deejay announced the last few slow dances before the King and Queen crowning ceremony. Finding Alice was now a necessity; even if it wasn't slightly weird that I hadn't seen my girlfriend all night, I definitely didn't have the PR skills she did.

I'd checked in the obvious spots first- the refreshment table, had Angela go look in the ladies room for me. Went outside on the off chance she may have gone out for a smoke, although I didn't think she smoked. I looked in the waiting limo. Then I'd seriously started to worry. I headed back toward the school, wondering if she'd gone somewhere else in the school, or even left completely. I dismissed that thought; she wouldn't have done something like that. I went past the gym and headed toward the main hallway, calling her name softly as I went.

All the doors were shut and the windows dark; it had felt completely off the probable path. Why would Alice be down here? I heard some light footsteps heading in my direction; certain that they belonged to Alice, I started to smile. I was disappointed, and perplexed when I saw Bella round the corner. She stopped in her tracks, her eyes going huge; she had an expression on her face that I'd never seen before, and I wasn't sure how to interpret it. It was like confusion, revulsion, disbelief- all mixed together. And then she saw me and her weird expression had changed to include what seemed like pity.

"Bella?" I'd asked, a bit concerned. "Are you okay?" I made to move toward her, and she skirted me, clearly trying to put space between us. Her eyes glittered in the darkened hallway and I saw her look past me into the nothingness. Immediately, I'd begun to feel uneasy. I followed her gaze, and turned to look back at her, the look on her face causing the hair on my neck to prickle.

"Bella…?" I whispered as my feet automatically starting moving towards the darkness ahead.

"Jasper, don't," she had whispered back in a broken voice, shaking her head back and forth as if in denial of in her tone made me want to break into a run. I started away from her quickly, still half-watching her behind me.

"Jasper…please," she said more urgently. I turned forward, not looking back at Bella again, anxiety coursing through me but unable to stop myself from pursuing my course. After I'd rounded the corner I slowed, listening, not knowing what I was even listening for. It was hard to hear anything over the sound of my own heart. Nothing but silence greeted me. As I'd gotten farther down the hall, I'd noticed one of the doors was slightly ajar, although no lights were on. The back of my neck started to burn, cold chills running through me intensely.

Then I heard it. A breathy moan accompanied by a squeak. I'd stopped nearly dead in my tracks, breath paralyzed in my throat, anxiety replaced by dread. Another smothered whimper, followed by a grunt this time. Immediately, the blood drained from my face, although my brain refused to accept the obvious.

Looking back now, I have no clue how I managed this, but I had forced myself not to rush right into that darkened room and go berserk. Even though my subconscious didn't want to accept it, I knew what was going on in there. Bella had seen it too, obviously.

I'd managed to calmly, if a little tremulously, walk to the door where the obvious sounds of sex, rough sex, were still escaping. Needing to confirm my escalating fears, I'd silently pushed the door open a little farther with the tips of my fingers. As it swung open, I heard a familiar yet muffled voice saying, "Oh God, James, harder," on another moan.

I stood in the doorway in complete numbness, completely bypassing shock. Blindly, I'd felt the wall just inside the door for the switch, unequivocally aware that I was not prepared for the sight that was about to greet me.

I flipped the switch.

I vaguely recognized the room as the teacher's lounge as it was instantly bathed in light. My brain was buzzing, like it had a million bees in it, but automatically everything went silent as I took in the sight of Alice bent forward over the back of one of the old leather couches, ass in the air and dress hiked around her hips, legs splayed and a hand on her ass holding that tiny, inconsequential thong out of the way. It was neon pink, but I'd already known that, I thought somewhat absurdly. Her head whipped around, mouth slightly open in the throes of obvious ecstasy, and simultaneously, I heard her companion yell, "Fuck, dude! The light! Do you mind?" as he brought his other hand up to shield his eyes.

I moved my gaze blankly to his face. _Oh God, James__,_ reverberated in my head, and I vaguely placed him as a guy on the football team, maybe. Unable to breath, I looked back toward Alice.

_My_ girlfriend_._

My jaw muscles seemed to be paralyzed. I don't know what I'd expected, but it sure as hell wasn't for her to give me her cat-got-the-cream smile and say, "You're late," in a porn-star voice. What the fuck was _that_ supposed to mean? Too catatonic to even speak on my own behalf, I'd flicked the light back off and backed out of the door slowly.

I stood there for a few seconds that felt like years, until I heard Alice say, "Are you gonna fucking finish James, or what?"

I'd closed my eyes, I remembered, unable to believe what I had just witnessed, wanting to burn them out of my head for suggesting such blasphemy. I'd stumbled that way down the hallway, hearing their voices, _her_ voice, over and over in my head.

_Oh, God James, harder__._

_You're late__. _

_Are you gonna fucking finish?_

Bella had been standing outside of the gym with her arms crossed, presumably waiting for me, if her fidgeting was indicative. Her face was all pity this time, although the revulsion was still etched there on her delicate features. I gathered she had been shocked as well. Vaguely, I wondered if James had been her date.

"Jasper. I'm so sorry," she murmured apologetically, rubbing her arms and looking miserable. I looked at her silently, still unable to form words though I could feel the muscle in my jaw twitching, and idly noted that her face was a little red and blotchy, like she'd been crying. Or trying not to. She watched me watch her for a minute and said in a weary voice, "Look, tonight just sucks. Do you want to get out of here?" I nodded and tried my voice out. "Yes." It came out kind of scratchy but it was audible.

The sound of heels clicking behind us made Bella jump and glance, and her face suddenly became white with anger. I turned to see Alice walking towards us, alone. She looked as if nothing had happened, as if both Bella and I hadn't seen some other guy who was not her boyfriend wetting his dick in her.

"Alice, I can't fucking believe you," Bella bit out vehemently in disgust, stepping around me to confront Alice, almost as if she was...protecting me? It was amazing; I supposed I must not have completely bypassed shock yet because all I could feel was numb, numb and more numb where I knew I should have hit anger by now.

"What the fuck ever, Bella," she snapped. "Take loverboy here home later because we have to go get crowned." With that she grabbed my arm and yanked. I started to feel the anger then. I couldn't believe she had the nerve to even touch me after fucking some other guy.

I recoiled instantly, but unfortunately I had decided too late in the game to bow out gracefully. She had me inside and there were tons of faces and then the deejay was announcing our names, and she was forcibly walking me to the platform with a huge, fake smile plastered on her face. Watching her work the crowd really got my gag reflex going, and I tried to stand as far from her as I could without making a scene. Nobody in here knew what the hell had just happened. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Bella come in the side door; she looked livid and like she was about to be sick at the same time. I concentrated on just getting through this so I could go lick my wounds in private.

Alice accepted that crown and smiled convincingly at our friends and waved, and every second of it made me sick. I tried to control the bile beginning to rise in my throat, thinking that as long as I could get through this everything would be alright. I could go home and punch things until my fists bled, but first I just had to get through this. I was rapidly starting to move past disgust and feeling the anger now, unbridled rage.

The hardest part was yet to come, I knew. It was tradition for the newly crowned couple to open the dance, and that meant that I had to touch her. Some detached part of my mind found it amusing that here I had dreamed of touching her, dancing with her even, for years and now I was. The ironic bastard governing that part of my brain also found it funny that I'd been right in knowing even as a fifth grader that I'd never stood a chance, had never even been in the same league.

The music was starting and people were looking at me, expecting me to lead Alice on to the dance floor. I just stood there until she huffily grabbed my hand (and I know she felt me cringe, it was reactional) and stalked us out to the dance floor. She positioned us and we began 'dancing'. I was feeling a million things just then, none of them good, and I'm sure all of it warred on my face no matter how much effort I put in to appear normal.

Finally she gave another little huff of impatience- gone was the sweet, sex kitten girlfriend of the last two and a half months- and said with a sneer, "Look, if you've got something to say to me, fucking say it." Her abrupt, challenging tone really rankled- it implied that she was somehow blaming me for her being easy.

"I don't," I said decisively as I stopped pretending to move with her to the music, rage moving to completely overtake the numbness. "You and I have nothing left to talk about."

She looked taken aback at my statement and immediately reverted to sweet Alice.

"Awww Jas, don't be like that," she cajoled, trying to press closer as I fought to not throw up on her. "It didn't mean anything, I promise."

_It didn't mean anything._

_I promise._

And then I realized that she meant exactly that. Disgusted beyond belief at her, and at myself for deluding myself all that time, I removed her arms abruptly and stepped away in the middle of the dance. I know she saw the grimace on my face, but her demeanor instantly changed back to the in-control bitch I'd caught being fucked senseless twenty minutes ago, and just a couple minutes ago out in the hallway. She smirked at me, and grabbed the arm of some random guy not dancing, drawing him in and plastering herself all over him which he gladly allowed. I openly let the revulsion show on my face, and I turned around and walked out. Bella met me at the door and took my hand. I didn't know Bella very well, and really the only thing I did know about her was that she was Alice's friend. Although I suspected that was over as well.

I did something that night that I never would have believed of myself. I lost my virginity, in a limo, to a girl I hardly knew, both of us in a completely drunken stupor. And I enjoyed it.

And that was just the beginning of the end for me.

My relationship with Bella was the same as before; she never gave me her number after that night, and I never tried to find it out. We never spoke of the intimacy we had shared during those few remaining days of our High School career because there had been nothing intimate about it. We had just been two wounded souls with a need for an outlet and a lot of booze. In the end, I figured she'd gotten the worst of it- James had indeed been her date, but then she'd been betrayed by her friend too.

For her part, Alice had acted as if none of it ever existed. Not the prom, not our relationship, her friendship with Bella, nothing. She'd gone back to ignoring my existence and I was too absorbed in my own self-pity and misery to even think about confronting her or stirring the pot. _Yet_. A grudge had already been lodged in my heart and every conscious moment was spent tearing myself down for my blind devotion and blatant stupidity.

But you could only be mad at yourself, hate yourself, for so long when you've been so incredibly wronged, before you move on to hatred for that guilty party. And that was exactly where I was right now.

The music changed, and a flash of yellow drew me out of my tortured, still raw, memories. On the dance floor, Alice had started rubbing herself against a guy in a leather jacket and making out with him. Rosalie came over and said something to Alice, which was just waved off and dismissed, earning Alice a somewhat disgusted look accompanied by a frown from her cousin. She took hold of Alice's shoulder and forcibly pulled her off leather-jacket guy and said something else, which Alice responded hotly to. She gave her cousin her own dirty look and jumped back on leather-jacket guy. After a minute, Rosalie stalked away to her own table and her own drink. She was watching Alice with a look on her face that probably rivaled mine, I appreciated darkly.

This was my in, the perfect opportunity I had been waiting for. Rosalie seemed clearly upset by her cousin's actions, and I was just betting that she had no idea how her cousin comported herself in her natural element; her reaction told me that Alice didn't talk about all of her conquests on the phone with her cousin. I was relying on this, and the fact that I'd caught her fucking someone else's prom date to keep me anonymous. I doubted very much that Rosalie knew even my name, much less that I'd dated her cousin for a scant two months.

She was about to get to know me though. I'd discovered during that sorry excuse for a prom night that we were both taking classes at NYU and that was the beginning of my epic plans for revenge. I was risking it all to carry this plan to fruition. Alice would be heading home to Washington tomorrow, and classes would be starting up here in New York. I had to do my homework carefully; I was planning to use and abuse another human being in order to strike back at someone else.

Taking another pull on my glass only to find I'd drunk the rest of its contents during my lovely stroll down memory lane, I dropped it heavily back on the table, not worrying overmuch about drawing attention to myself. The sound went unnoticed in the chaos around me.

I glanced briefly at Alice one last time (_I should be so lucky_, I thought sourly) before looking toward her cousin again, who was seemingly enveloped in her own dark thoughts if the look on her face was any indicator. There was nothing I could do here tonight except kill my plan dead in its tracks if I hung around and got any drunker. I grabbed my leather jacket off the booth next to me and made my way through the sea of bodies, not looking back. I couldn't look back. I knew that if I did, I would regret. And I'd had enough of that already to last me a lifetime.

Guilt too. Which would assault me if I looked back as well. This was without a doubt the worst thing I would ever do in my life, but in truth, my life was over anyway. I really didn't care what happened to me afterward, as long as someone took that bitch down.

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